Park Si Young
park si-young's works are a mixture of painting and graphic design.
the
combination of painted families posing for the camera and brand logo
wallpapers as symbols of the desire to become middle class create a
weird tension.
"in korea, the middle class is like a fata morgana that can never be
reached. everybody has a desire towards it and wants to be part of it.
we take out loans and work hard to reach the virtual image called
'middle class'. in the end there are derailments like dying from
overwork or cheating. it is like an incantation that repeats itself
since korea's industrialization. included in this incantation is the
'family'. we deal with it, make sacrifices for it, sometimes go out for
a picnic and are captured by the fantasy that we can build up a middle
class lifestyle easily if we just live in happiness, no matter what the
real living conditions are. in the end the survival game of becoming
middle class in order to buy a house is doomed to failure. forced
happiness and blindly following the aim of becoming middle class makes
us allow ourselves to be exploited and justify violence to others.
historically this desire has made our children suffer from tuberculosis
in becoming 'gongsuni's (term for female factory workers in the 1970s).
for an apartment we ignore the deeply rooted history of the cozy
relation between politics and business. we run from bank to bank in
order to borrow a mortgage or apply for the restauration of our credit
status. in the end we bite the dust. this is our history that repeats
itself endlessly without a single interruption."
park si-young
